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"Hospitals will also continue consolidating into huge, multihospital systems. They say that this will generate cost savings that can be passed along to patients
by setgree 9y ago
"Hospitals will also continue consolidating into huge, multihospital systems. They say that this will generate cost savings that can be passed along to patients, but in fact, the opposite happens. The mergers create local monopolies that raise prices to counter the decreased revenue from fewer occupied beds. Federal antitrust regulators must be more vigorous in opposing such mergers."
This interrupted the flow of the piece for me...it has nothing to do with hospital visits diminishing overall and it's an empirical claim that would have benefited from a citation. It seems that Times op-eds often go for these sorts of flourishes at the end.
I learned some interesting facts/stats from this piece and enjoyed it overall.
- Spooky23 9y agoIt is absolutely relevant as these hospital networks are gobbling up medical practcies, nursing facilities, and other providers (acute rehab, pt, hospice, etc). The results are predictable. Prices are going up and medical providers are marketing funnels. In my little area (Albany-Schenectady-Troy NY), 90% of the providers are now affiliated with two medical systems. One is a former Catholic medical system that was absorbed by a national system and the other is a federation of joint ventures headlined by the local trauma/teaching hospital. 10 years ago, we had 5 networks in the region. Even as an outsider looking in, you can see the monopolist behaviors. Nursing and other medical staff are taking 20% salary haircuts, doctors are forced to sell practices or lose referrals and go out of business, and the quality and costs are not moving the right way.